Allegheny County has given Mt. Lebanon a grant for up to $100,000 to fund items relating to the municipality’s Activate Uptown plan to upgrade public spaces in the Washington Road business district.

Last year, the Mt. Lebanon Commission approved a $6 million bond issue to fund infrastructure improvements, of which $221,000 has been dedicated for costs associated with getting the Activate Uptown plan off the ground. The grant comes from Main Streets Allegheny, a new program designed to support neighborhood commercial districts and downtown business corridors across the county. 

Main Streets Allegheny replaces Allegheny Together, a program that dates back to the early 2000s, and one that Mt. Lebanon Commercial Districts Manager Eric Milliron developed during his time with the county’s Economic Development Office.

“Allegheny Together was based solely on CDBG (Community Development Block Grant)  funds,” said Milliron. The block grant funds, from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, focused on community revitalization, had stricter guidelines, with the requirement that the money be used for at least one of the following objectives: Benefit people with low or moderate incomes; aid in the prevention or elimination of slums and blight; or meet certain community development needs having a particular urgency.

“Now they’re bringing in another blend of funding resources that opens up the program to communities like Mt. Lebanon,” he added.

“Mt. Lebanon has earmarked Activate Uptown funds to start the project, but we wanted to supplement that with the Main Streets dollars,” said Milliron.

The specific grant Mt. Lebanon received is an implementation and placemaking grant, which Milliron expects will be used for sunshade structures, theatrical lighting and new railing and fencing in the stairway portal that opens by the clock tower on Washington Road.

Clocktower Plaza is slated to be the first phase of the project, followed by the portal, then a phase connecting those two elements.